Problems with XPSP2 RC2

This weekend I decided it was time to pave over my laptop which I have had working awesome for years with Windows XP; I decided I would go straight to XPSP2 RC2.

It previously was upgraded to RC1, and everything was working fine. But the rebuild has proven that "something" doesn't want to play nice with my laptop.

The biggest problem is video related. I have little green dots on the desktop in a vetical line, making me freak out originally thinking the LCD was fried. After testing I found that its not. Then this morning out of nowhere I all of a sudden had one section of my screen on the top and bottom just go flaky, with black and white vertical stripes. REALLY weird. I simply dragged a window over the effected areas and it repainted fine.... and things seem to be normal again. (For now)

The other issue is that running Windows Update with the runas command no longer works. The permission set for the system seems to tight to allow it to work. By adding *.windowsupdate.microsoft.com to the trusted site you can at least have it identify updates for you. However, it fails to install the updates each and every time I try. I haven't debugged it enough yet to find out why this failure is occuring; I will do that when I return from the Security Summit this week.

Note to the Microsoft crew: Are you guys actually RUNNING with least privilege over there? This is a pretty major thing to break, especially if you wish to promote least privilege as an action which should always be taken. And breaking it "right out of the box" is just bad... you would have clearly seen this was a problem the first time you right clicked on Windows Update and did "run as" if you were a normal user. *sigh*

I was happy to see that RC2 included hooks into its Security Center with GriSoft's free version of AVG. Previously in RC1 it screamed at me that "I was at risk" as it believed I didn't have anti-virus installed when I indeed did. This was good to see, as according to the Security Center I am now safe *chuckle*

"God himself could not sink this ship!"
- The answer given by a deck hand when asked if Titanic was really unsinkable.

Remember absolute security is a myth. So too is the misnomer that by installing XPSP2 you can rely on Microsoft to 'save' you; the belief that security should start and end with Microsoft without any user education is just silly... as was only placing 20 life boats on the Titanic.

Of course, right now the fact is that XPSP2 RC2 isn't something I am worrying about for security... I can't even get it to display right. *sigh* Hopefully a new video driver will be coming out soon. Until then, lets hope the thing works good enough to blog the Security Summit tomorrow. (Assuming of course that there is wireless access at the conference center)

Which reminds me... its time to head down to Seattle. Watch out Seattle, here I come.